


and we will never be the same again

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Gen, S2M40 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a catalogue of losses; a list of the damages, though there won’t be reparations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and we will never be the same again

These are the things we lost in the fire:

1\. Two runners. No, more than that, so many more people than that. Where do you start counting? From when the traitor turned? (From when the traitor probably turned, no one knows, he was never given a chance—)

(When you’ve caused that much destruction, do you deserve a chance?)

From when the traitor turned, then, the count is five Abel runners. Abel’s leader. New Canton’s leader. One of New Canton’s own runners. The list of names goes on and on and it’s easy to pin it all on the traitor, because that makes it simple. Then there’s only one person to hate (and it’s not you).

But then, if you count from the beginning, the real beginning, the plague— 

Well, there are no lists, then. There isn’t enough paper left for that list.

2\. The grounding force of…well, it’s hard to say how many people, because some are better at hiding it than others. Janine de Luca likes to think she is, but losing the three most important people in her new world — well, if Sam sometimes sees her idle, staring into the middle distance, or swallowing and blinking a little more than necessary, he doesn’t say anything. And if she tosses and turns in her now too big bed and eventually requests a sleeping bag (when she zips it up it’s not like an embrace at all, but it’s the closest she can get), she certainly doesn’t mention it to anyone.

Paula Cohen is an unknown — has she always been like this, staring constantly towards the gates, crying quietly in her office (Maxine’s office) when nobody needs her? Was she happier before this? Surely it couldn’t be possible that she has always looked this tired. It’s difficult to know what to do when the person you’re comforting isn’t your doctor, your best friend, but someone who is just this side of uncomfortably similar. She can fix your physical wounds just as well, and she could probably talk even better about Demons & Darkness, but her accent’s different, her face is different, and she is not the doctor everyone wants.

Sam Yao has lost so many trusted runners — some of them aren’t even dead and some days that’s worse. If Maxine were here, she would order bedrest, or at least leave — but since she’s not, he gives most of his runs to Amber himself. The emptiness of his runner schedule means he doesn’t have to get out of bed some days. He doesn’t.

3\. The alliance with New Canton. No one is surprised when it crumbles — New Canton blames Abel for Esteban’s death, Abel is too weak to to do all that much about it, too busy picking up the pieces that have fallen closer to home. Esteban’s wife (no, widow) is the new leader and she makes her position quite clear — there will be no more friendly co-operation between the two settlements. No more rescuing in the nick of time from missions gone wrong. No more fraternal alliance.

Everyone waits with baited breath to see if it will turn biblical. It hasn’t yet, but there’s still time.

4\. A leader. New Canton had a procedure in place for the loss of theirs. That, by all accounts (not overly official ones), had been simple.

The Major was Abel Township. No, that was Janine — the Major was Abel’s direction, Abel’s hope, the idea that this was not a static reality, stretching out across the hills to the horizon. The Major was a belief that there was a horizon.

Without her Abel Township was a ship floating with no engines and no sail, lost and with no means of propulsion. Nothing good ever happens to a ship stuck in a calm.

5\. Hope. It’s not gone forever — it couldn’t be gone forever, humans are too bloody resilient for that, and if they weren’t, the original outbreak would have broken them — but if you walk around Abel Township you can feel its absence. It’s how everything is just a little quieter than before. It’s in the lack of laughter, even though Van Ark is gone and the zombies could be gone if the spray — no, let’s not try the ifs. It’s the way people don’t look each other in the eye anymore because if they do, both parties will crumble, and everyone knows they need to hold it together. They’re not sure why or who for. But they can continue, as long as they look at the ground and move quietly, and if you do that long enough that’s a kind of hope, isn’t it? Surviving even when you don’t think you can?

No, no, that’s just inertia. Abel certainly didn’t lose inertia. It’s the only thing that keeps the township going.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr 5th Feb 2014.


End file.
